


a tale for you, who needs to hear it

by julad



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Imported
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:15:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julad/pseuds/julad





	a tale for you, who needs to hear it

    
**a tale  
for you**

| 

Minor warning first of all, since this isn't a *dark* story, but nor is it a particularly nice one. That's just how I often do things, I'm afraid. I don't know how I got started, but one day I just couldn't stop thinking, what if they *weren't* heroes? What if, what if, what if... 

Minor spoilers from the JA books through to all the movies, including vague speculation on Episodes II and III. 

This was meant to be slash, but it turned a weird corner half-way through and I ended up chopping the explicit Q/O bits out of it. Read as gen or slash, whatever suits you. 

It's also unbeta'ed, so feel free to nitpick anything and everything, because I will certainly be revising. 

Um. I think that's all. On to the story. 

* * *

**A Tale For You, Who Needs To Hear It**   
by Julad 

* * *

Questions, questions, questions, you ask. Pah! Serve you well, your feverish curiosity does not. I have travelled a long way, and I am tired and hungry. Feed me, you will, and then perhaps I will tell you why I am here. 

Tales of great wonder and noble deeds, you would hear, hmm? Well. This food is too hot, and overcooked, and happy I am not. I will tell you, not the story you want to hear, but a story you must hear. 

Not good Jedi, were Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn. Apart, they were headstrong, selfish, ambitious, obstinate, impatient, and intolerant. Together, they became something much worse. 

Qui-Gon Jinn had a good master, but a bad apprentice. Burned, he was, by a betrayal. In his moment of pain, he trusted the Force not, and instead clung to the pride and ignorance which had led him to that point. Nurtured them, he did, oh yes. Vowed to take no other padawan, he did. But the Force will not be denied, and those who resist are punished by the very actions of their futile defiance. 

So Qui-Gon Jinn refused his padawan, and in return, destiny forced his padawan upon him. His very refusal made the apprenticeship into everything he so unwisely feared. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi was not chosen by a master to be trained to a Jedi, but accept his fate, he would not. He battered and badgered and harangued, until fate punished him by giving him what he so unwisely yearned for. 

From such ignoble beginnings do empires fall, Child. 

Hard to fathom, the Force is, and in their own way they served its will, and came to an accomodation between them. Love grew between them, hmm, even so, because neither was so blind that they could not respect and admire in the other the traits, good and bad, they clung to in themselves. 

It was this love, oh yes, which was their undoing, because based on good foundation it was not. The bond between them was not well-woven, and it cut them deeply at every turn. Love for Obi-Wan gave far too late into trust, and only with his dying breath did Qui-Gon Jinn give his apprentice his open heart. Love for Qui-Gon Jinn made Obi-Wan accept the plea, and found himself Master to an apprentice with only resignation and resentment, even as Qui-Gon had felt for him. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi had a good padawan, but a bad master. The slow poison in his own apprenticeship spread in all directions, as poison does. Trusted the Council, he did not, because Qui-Gon Jinn did not trust them. Trusted the boy, he did not, because Qui-Gon Jinn *did*. Trusted his Master, he did not. Trusted himself, he did not. Trusted the methods of his own training, he did not. And so, devoid of guidance, he trusted the force as it revealed itself to him, and nothing else. 

Function in a vacuum, the Jedi do not. The many of the Order are united to curtail the mistakes of the few. Abandon those who lean too heavily on it, the Force will. Obi-Wan Kenobi was told this, but he heeded not the tellers of the tale. Together he and Anakin did great deeds, yes, this is true, but a Jedi cut loose from the Order is vulnerable, defenceless against the sly and patient manipulations of the Dark. 

Anakin Skywalker heard the Force more strongly and clearly than did his master, but was ignorant, as all Padawans are, of how to discern the murmurings of the Light from the whisperings of the Dark. He had been taught by his master's example only to trust the Force as he heard it, so when the Force began to tell him differently to Obi-Wan, Anakin obeyed his master not. 

Know already, you do, the ending to this story. Tired, I am, and not inclined to tell the rest tonight. 

So leave me be; go do your deeds, fight your battles and train your younglings. But hear this, you will, before I sleep: 

Great-great-grandson of Yoda am I, and not a Jedi. But like all my people, I hear the voice of the Force, and the Force tells me this fledgling Jedi Order needs another Grandmaster. Important, my own wishes are not, and thus have I left my home and my family, and come to you. 

So mark my words you will, Luke Skywalker, Master of Many, Son of Anakin who was Padawan of Obi-Wan who was Padawan of Qui-Gon. Indepedent you are, and willful, and ignorant of the traps which lurk in the simplest of decisions. Disobeyed Yoda, you did. Your good fortune is your punishment for this, because it has made you careless, and blind, and overconfident in the aftermath of your great successes. 

You have turned your father from the Dark to the Light, but I tell you, turning your children and grandchildren from Light to Dark is more easily done. So think on this, Child: what is more important, your past or your future? Hmm? You rescued the past, but for the future will you finally sacrifice your ignorance and your pride? 

My first lesson to you, this was. Now go your way, and let me rest. 

I have other stories, so many others, but wait I will, and see if you will hear them. 

* * *

[Email](mailto:julad@bigfoot.com)

[Julad's Hideout](http://members.dencity.com/anhedonia/julad/)  
  
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